There's No Such Thing As "Personal Style"

There's No Such Thing As "Personal Style"

Your bank balance is personal. Hopefully your sex life is too. And whatever it is that you do on one of those personal days from work is most definitely your business. There are certainly better things to do than sit at your desk for nine hours. Like sleeping in and watching The Price Is Right. You deserve some freedom. We totally get that.

However, there is less room for “personal” when it comes to defining your look. No, you don’t have to follow trends to the letter, and there certainly isn’t any crime in experimenting with clothes. But men make every excuse in the book to legitimize style selections. Comfort, apathy and affordability — these are the pleas you’ve deferred to in defense of your look. And indeed, we’ve all been guilty of an infraction at one point or another. But they’re all thinly veiled attempts at masking the master explanation: “It’s my personal style.”

In fact, it is not. Fashion is dictated by the runways and slowly trickles down to the finest boutiques, and finally to the bleakest bargain basements. Style is how you interpret those trends — even if you’re the type who claims to not care. Think your take is unique? Every ensemble started somewhere. You certainly weren’t the first to dream it up.

Ironically, the most egregious offenders fall at opposite ends of the style spectrum. Public enemy No. 1 is the lazy guy. He thinks it’s OK to wear 5-year-old Fruit of The Looms, baggy boot-cut jeans and an oversize button-down with billowy sleeves large enough to double as a hang glider. You might assume his lethargy is an indication of indifference. But if you were to lay out a line of questioning, you’d conclude that he actually believes what he’s wearing is a style — his own.

But it’s lazy guy’s counterpart over yonder 180 degrees that really creates a fuss. He’s the man who openly cares about the way he looks. When it comes to style, he’s out of the closet. And more often than not, the final product isn’t pretty. He trolls AskMen looking for peer support and doling out advice based on experience with his so-called personal style. In case you’re unfamiliar with this type of guy’s antics, here’s a real-life sampling straight from AM’s message boards:

“Rule No. 1: Go with your gut.”

Yeah, this is totally wrong. Sure, you have to enjoy what you wear, and part of that calls for trusting your intuition when picking pieces. But relying solely on instinct can lead to trouble. You need to watch what’s happening in magazines, television and on the streets. Then, it’s time to make it work for you.

Seriously? Yes, it’s possible to give your lashes a perm. But why anyone, let alone a man, would want to torture those delicate hairs is beyond us. This is metrosexuality of the worst kind. And if curling qualifies as personal style, it’s a secret that better be kept tighter than... Well, you get the point.

Stop the presses. This is one guy who clearly believes that a beach body is carte blanche for buttering up his thighs and squeezing them into a pair of designer chaps. Even a great label can’t hide the fault here. And unlike one of the relativist responses to this problematic post, style success with black leather leggings does not depend on who is wearing them. It’s always a fashion fail.

ditch the "personal style"

In the end, some things in life are most definitely personal. However, style walks a fine, gray line. It’s a constant balancing act of rule interpretation and reckless individualism. And absolutes absolutely exist — laziness and primping your lashes are never friendly forms of self-expression. Only those who really take style personally will get it right.